For awhile I didn't want to wear my hearing aids. For awhile I believed they defined me. Recently I HAD to start wearing them again. I really didn't want to. I wear them now almost every day and, to be honest, I really hate it. I hate how loud everything is and I can get frustrated and irritable because of it. Sometimes I have to take breaks from my hearing aids because my ears hurt, or because everything is too loud. I really don't want to wear them anymore and would rather just not hear like other people. Something keeps them in my ears though. You see, I don't hear like everyone else does. My ears are different and they are special. My hearing loss has advantages I didn't see a while ago.
You see, there's this moment at the end of every day where I take my hearing aids off to go to bed. All day everything has been loud and hectic for me. All day I felt tense because I'm not used to such loud noise. And it really is the best feeling ever when I take them off, and everything gets quiet. I relax. I can't hear much. All the little background noises: fans, AC's, people talking upstairs; I can't hear that anymore. I am in peace and quiet. I can lie in my bed and just relax.
My ears are not broken. I am not disabled. My ears are special and so am I. My hearing loss helps me experience something I really like. Quiet. Without my hearing loss, at the end of the day I wouldn't have that feeling that I just can't describe. Everything would still be loud. I wouldn't be able to relax. It wouldn't be as easy to experience peace and quiet.
Don't feel sympathy towards me because of my hearing loss. I do not feel bad for myself. As I said before, my ears are not broken. I am not disabled. My ears are special.
And so am I.